Janet Dean

Janet Dean

Angels in the Air Morning spills sand from its bucket, a clock ticksone Mississippi, two Mississippi. Deserted by an outgoing tide, an afternoonspread flat and dreary, wet with longing. She spent years learning to silence the ticking clock,change her voice, open...
Jock Stein

Jock Stein

The First Snowdrop Modest, trembling, they appeared together:why be first when you can burst upon the scenelike mini US cavalry, genes and ethics matched,despatched midwinter on a mission, gently bentto tame the harsher shades of government,calm down showers of...
Ursula Kelly

Ursula Kelly

When I Can Make it to the Pub Again It’s not so much the pain butfear of pain, that makes me hesitate.I am learning to bear my own weight again,with crutches and a moonboot.Every tiny step’s a giant leap of faiththat a rearticulated ankle will still hold,the pins will...
Jayant Kashyap

Jayant Kashyap

Child as a Piano During the ultrasound, it lies there,dormant, like a landmine inside you.Later, it erupts – a months-quiet volcanoof its own. Now the constant ticks,the continuous whirring of me, me,me, mommy, me. A four-leggedsinister machine in the...
Isabel Miles

Isabel Miles

Night Vision At noon the garden’s open as a flower,its beauty fitting to our spectrum and our scale.Green lawn, brown earthand flashing red, black, white,three partridges that sprint across the grass.Plain everyday. The midnight garden’s a dark pool.Upon it strands of...
Michael Tanner

Michael Tanner

Pavement Poppies A half dozen or solending a delicate beautyto vertical brick,trodden tarmac,swayed by the passageof traffic down to the town. None noticed their green emergencefrom the crack that time digsat the base of walls –big enough to admit dustand water, the...